NC IS SLOWLY RAMPING UP TESTING FOR COVID 19: “Our issue and our limitation has been for supplies at our state lab,” said Mandy Cohen, the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, in a Thursday afternoon news conference. “Our extraction supplies have been in extremely limited supplies.” It’s not just a North Carolina problem. The agent used to extract genetic material from the virus at the labs has created a nationwide problem, Politico and The New York Times reported. “The main issue appears to be an agent used for extracting the RNA in order to identify the genetic sequence that marks this as the coronavirus,” said state Sen. Jeff Jackson, a Mecklenburg County Democrat. In addition to the state lab, tests are being conducted at LabCorp, Atrium, Duke and UNC, Cohen said. LabCorp, which is based in Burlington, is currently able to perform several thousand tests per day at facilities across the nation, according to its website.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article241125181.html

NC REPUBLICANS' OPPOSITION TO MEDICAID EXPANSION RUNS DEEP: The task force report referenced a study published in 2018 that concluded that the infant mortality rate dropped more quickly in states that expanded Medicaid, with the biggest declines among African Americans. The study did not convince Senate Republicans who oppose Medicaid expansion. Sen. Joyce Krawiec, a Kernersville Republican, noted that the steepest drops in death rates in the years referenced in the study were between 2010 and 2014, before states started implementing Medicaid expansion. “It’s misleading to tie it to Medicaid expansion,” she said. Sen. Ralph Hise, a Spruce Pine Republican, asked if “putting someone on Medicaid would make them more healthy.” Zolotor said it’s important for women to be healthy before they get pregnant, but did not have information to show people who have Medicaid are healthier than people who don’t have it.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article241066841.html

WHEN REPUBLICAN LG CANDIDATE GAVE GUN SPEECH, HE DIDN'T OWN A GUN YET: “When are you all going to start standing up for the majority?” he asked. “And here’s who the majority is: I’m the majority. I’m a law-abiding citizen who’s never shot anybody, never committed a serious crime, never committed a felony.” A video of his speech was shared by Greensboro-area Republican Rep. Mark Walker and took off, racking up millions of views and attracting national news coverage. Robinson started getting invited to speak at gun rights rallies — including the NRA’s national convention in 2018, where President Donald Trump also spoke. When he gave his now-famous speech about protecting law-abiding gun owners, Robinson didn’t actually own a gun but did have a criminal record. However, his record is relatively minor — nothing violent and no felonies — and mostly consists of traffic offenses. He also filed for bankruptcy three times in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has been taken to court a few times over unpaid debts, and has been the subject of numerous IRS liens for failing to pay thousands of dollars in taxes, as recently as 2012.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article240881326.html

TRUMP NAMES CONGRESSIONAL BULLY MARK MEADOWS CHIEF OF STAFF: Meadows, who has represented far western North Carolina since 2013, is one of Trump’s fiercest defenders in Congress and had been considered for the chief of staff job at other points during Trump’s tenure. Meadows announced late last year that he would not seek another term in Congress, saying he might work in the Trump administration in some capacity. That stoked rumors that he was finally poised to ascend to the position when the time was right. In a sign of Trump’s continued favoritism of Meadows, the president named the congressman to a group of House Republicans to act as a rapid response team during the Senate impeachment trial earlier this year. During those two and half weeks, Meadows boasted to reporters that no member of Congress communicated directly with Trump more than he did.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article240979026.html

TILLIS ATTACKS CUNNINGHAM WITH SANDERS, BUT CAL VOTED FOR BUTTIGIEG: Tillis, 59, has embraced President Donald Trump fully, called out his Democratic challengers as socialists and radical and is seeking to make sanctuary cities and illegal immigration a top issue. “I want to keep working with President Trump to create jobs, boost wages, secure winning trade deals, rebuild our military, improve health care for veterans, combat sanctuary cities, and confirm well-qualified judges to the federal bench,” Tillis said in a statement Tuesday night. His first ad highlights Sen. Bernie Sanders more than former Vice President Joe Biden, who won North Carolina on Tuesday and is in a tight race with Sanders for the nomination. The ad also replays several times Cunningham’s commitment to support his party’s ticket. Cunningham voted for former candidate Pete Buttigieg for president.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article240887251.html